Pepsi is the intended customer.
“In his presentation, Priestley said the company’s long-range Semi would have a range of up to 500 miles with a 23,000-lb vehicle weight.”
Never mind that most semis are in the 50,000 lb range. Quite a penalty for EV. Or limited range.
“The company confirmed its Tesla Semi remains on track for production-spec deliveries to customers by 2026 while offering more details on range and payload capacity for the EV truck.”
If Pepsi/Frito-Lay is moving potato chips or Doritos around the country, even full trucks are well below gross weight. Most of the cargo is “air”.
That may even be the reason Pepsi is the “launch customer.”
intercst
Quite different from transporting Pepsi and other soft drinks. That’s some seriously heavy cargo, so that would appear to be off the table. Of course the trucks are not interchangeable, so they’re already running two systems, I wonder if running three presents any further logistical challenges?
Maybe, maybe not. Have to remember an important fact: All the soft drink manufacturers ship concentrate to local bottlers, who then combine it with local water (and whatever else is added) to make the final packaged product (aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and so on).
If the concentrate is mostly liquid, then it is more than 8 lbs per gallon. So a truck could only carry 10k gallons total to hit 80+k lbs. For a weak Semi, it would be less than 3k gallons (23k lbs). A trailer could be a tanker truck rather than a 20’ or 40’ container carrier. We do not know how concentrate is normally delivered, but it would not be a surprise if it was via tanker truck (which could ship via rail too). Or it could be a rail tanker, with a much higher carrying capacity in terms of gallons per rail tanker (vs tanker truck), AND the number of such rail carriers per train.